Transportation vehicles, for example, aircraft, trains, buses, recreation vehicle, boats and other similar vehicles use various computing devices for providing various functions, including entertainment, system control, content storage, and other functions. These computing devices include hardware (for example, servers, switches, network interface cards, storage adapters, storage devices and others) and software (for example, server applications, operating systems, firmware, management applications, application programming interface (APIs) and others).
Transportation vehicles today may have individualized functional equipment dedicated to a particular passenger seat, which can be utilized by the passenger, such as video and/or audio entertainment systems, adjustable seats, adjustable environmental controls, adjustable lighting, telephony systems, crew communication systems, and the like. Many commercial airplanes today may also have individualized video and audio entertainment systems, often referred to as “inflight entertainment” or “IFE” systems. Such systems may also be referred to as “inflight entertainment and communication” systems as well, and typically abbreviated as “IFEC” systems.
As one example of a function that a passenger may activate, entertainment systems for passenger carrier vehicles, such as commercial airlines, often have video displays installed at each passenger seat. For instance, video displays may be provided at each passenger seat, such as mounted at each of the seats of the passenger seats, and/or on cabin walls and/or deployable from an armrest for seats located at a bulkhead, i.e., in the first row of a section. Many of these systems allow each passenger to select from multiple video channels and/or audio channels, or even individually select and play videos from a library of videos. These video displays may also provide access to games, communication applications (e.g., telephone service, messaging, etc.), Internet browsing, and other computer applications. Sometimes such displays are referred to as smart monitors due to the ability to provide computer applications and process and store data internally.
Conventional IFE networks deploy a seat distribution network for distributing content/data to passenger seat devices. Conventional seat distribution networks typically use Gigabit Ethernet 1000BaseT interface for connecting network devices for data distribution. The 1000BaseT technology uses four pairs (i.e. 8 wires) of high speed twisted pair cables for data line connection. In conventional systems, when there is internal fault at a seat box of the seat distribution network, network fault bypass function is enabled by using relays or analog switches in the seat box that connects between transmit (Tx) and receive (Rx) signal pairs to bypass internal switches of the seat box. For other faults, e.g. broken cables etc., a column loopback function is implemented by using multiple cables that connect a TX-TX and Rx-Rx pair of the last two seat boxes of a column of seats.
New Gigabit Ethernet 1000BaseT1 technology has been developed that uses one pair (i.e. 2 wires) for wired data connections. This technology reduces overall weight for the seat distribution network and hence is desirable for weight conscious systems, e.g. aircraft seat distribution networks. However, the 1000BaseT1 technology has design challenges for providing redundancy and recovery because the data line connection is bi-directional and connections between separate Tx and Rx paths are unavailable. Therefore, networking technology is being developed to efficiently use 1000BaseT1 technology for providing redundancy and recovery paths in seat distribution networks.